Hue know it makes sense

Local man: "Where you from?"Jeff: "England"Local man: "England!!! Football good!!! Michael Owen"Jeff: "Yes"I must have had this conversation about 350 times already since coming to Vietnam. But I don't mind because the people here do seem to be genuinely friendly and enthusiastic. OK, so most of them want to sell you a pineapple, a book, a taxi ride, a hotel room, a postcard, or bread with flies on but everyone's got to make a living as J-Lo so succinctly sang.Vietnam is the most characterful country I've ever been to. Like in China the people are friendly and industrious and the scenery is spectacular but here there's shedfulls of charm to add in as well.Hue (pronounced "Waheeeeeyyyyyy!!!!!" or something like that) is about half way down the coast and seems to be typical of the kind of thouroughly relaxing old colonial towns in this country. It's a pretty well developed place and its setting on the banks of the Perfume River adds even more to the charm. The backpackers stay on one or two streets and everything is cheap, especially the local brew, Huda, which costs 7000 dong a bottle. That's 25 pence.We haven't done that much since we've been here - trip to the beach one day, visit to the massive walled citadel another, and a trip out to the Demilitarised Zone on our last day. The beach was long and the sand here is white. The walled citadel is a pretty interesting place to see - the scale of the place defies belief. Pity most of it was bombed in '68 but there's still plenty to see and take in.The trip out to the DMZ was another matter entirely. We visited a vast network of tunnels where the VC actually lived during the wars here, and it is yet another eye opening experience for me. It really puts the war into a different light when you visit tunnels that are about two feet wide and about five feet high (in the big parts) that they dug by hand and then lived in for years by candlelight whilst fighting the French, then the NVA and the Americans. I've been learning more about the war from books and locals (hark at my intellect) and it does leave a lasting impression.Anyway, enough historical ramblings. Off to Hoi An next to get a suit made and do some more relaxing.